Hello? It’s Marty. Can you hear me?

Forty years ago, Martin Cooper, a Motorola executive, stood on a street corner in Manhattan and pulled off one of engineering's biggest public relation coups ever: he made the world's first call on a handheld, mobile cellular phone-in public-to a colleague at AT&T, a rival in the high-stakes race to develop the technology.

Forty years ago, Martin Cooper, a Motorola executive, stood on a street corner in Manhattan and pulled off one of engineering’s biggest public relation coups ever: Cooper, an engineer from Motorola, made the world’s first call on a handheld, mobile cellular phone—in public—to a colleague at AT&T, a rival in the high-stakes race to develop the technology.

Although it would be ten years before the first phones were commercially available, the call was an important milestone for Motorola. The company needed a dazzling demonstration because it was taking on AT&T, which at the time was the biggest company in the world, to prevent the Bell System from gaining a monopoly in cellular technology.

“I have this really clear vision of people standing around gawking at us while we made this phone call in the middle of New York City,” recalls Cooper, chuckling with delight at the memory. He admitted that it wasn’t really the first call made, though. Engineers made hundreds of test calls in the weeks leading up to the demonstration.

Right place at the right timeCurrently, with his wife Arlene Harris, running DynaLLC, an incubator for various wireless development activities, Cooper has been involved with mobile phone technology for virtually his entire career. After earning a B.S. at the Illinois Institute of Technology, a stint in the Navy, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, he went to work as a research engineer at Teletype Corporation in 1953. While his job there was stimulating, he left a year later to work for Motorola, the leading manufacturer of radio telephones and dispatch systems. “I wanted to do engineering and with Motorola I saw the opportunity to work on products that were actually going to ship in the near future,” says Cooper.

As an engineering manager, Cooper worked on many new products, including the first push button mobile phones. He soon became a specialist in digital electronics and was one of the first engineers to put transistors into a commercial application.

Click on image to enlarge.

Martin Cooper

“Our first all-transistor mobile telephone had less than 100 transistors, but we were always trying to reduce that number because they cost us 50 cents each!” recalls Martin. He marvels over the fact that transistor counts in the billions are routine today.

The idea of Motorola developing a cellular telephone was an obvious next step. “We had been dreaming about this technology for a long time and had people in our own research labs working on all of the parts,” says Martin. “But though I knew that it could be done, at the same time we were pushing the technology envelope on almost every front.”

Nobody, for example, had ever built an antenna operating at 1 GHz in the small form factor needed. And nobody had ever designed a frequency synthesizer that could work reasonably well with low power drain. In fact, very few people were designing anything at all for battery operation.

“We needed power amps, we needed receiver amps, we needed synthesizers and we had to go to experts for every one of them, and then someone had to integrate the whole thing together,” says Cooper.

It's good to see Marty still around and involved. Back in 1970, I worked in the Motorola Research Labs in the brand-new Schaumburg facility. I did have a (very) small part in the story: I had worked on making inexpensive plastic transistors (originally intended for fast switching) work as low-noise VHF/UHF signal amps. I was assigned to be a consultant to Marty's project to share my results and help make the early prototypes work with mass-produced silicon instead of the (20x more expensive)ones then favored.
Mark Rackin, W4LGN (back in ancient times, K2UWN, then W9JZY)

In recent months, I have seen several accounts in the press discussing Martin Cooper's role in the development of the cell phone. I worked for Martin at Motorola Communications and Industrial Electronics (C&IE) from November 1959 to June 1960. Motorola was developing the latest in a series of two way radio products of ever smaller size. These developments were part of an evolutionary process that led eventually to the cell phone. I was fresh out of school and my contributions were of no particular significance.
But let me tell you about something I observed on a daily basis at Motorola's plant in Chicago. Motorola C&IE had two black employees. They tended an incinerator on the opposite side of the parking lot from the plant. They were not allowed into the building. Not to take a break or eat lunch. Not to use the rest rooms. Not to warm up in the middle of Chicago's sub zero winters. And my fellow employees would take their breaks at the second floor windows overlooking that parking lot, and they would make insulting, racist comments about the two black employees.
I went to human relations, and in the most non-confrontational way that I could muster I asked why Motorola did not employ on the basis of ability, without regard to race. And at my six month review, I was terminated.
You don't have to take my word concerning Motorola's employment policies. In September of 1980, Motorola agreed to pay up to $10 million in back pay to some 11,000 blacks who were denied jobs over a seven-year period and to institute a $5 million affirmative action program, according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
I have a question for Martin Cooper. Marty, what did you ever do to challenge the blatant, toxic racial discrimination at Motorola?
Robert Gilchrist Huenemann, M.S.E.E.
120 Harbern Way
Hollister, CA 95023-9708
831-635-0786
bobgh@razzolink.com
https://sites.google.com/site/bobhuenemann/
Extra Class Amateur Radio License W6RFW

In recent months, I have seen several accounts in the press discussing Martin Cooper's role in the development of the cell phone. I worked for Martin at Motorola Communications and Industrial Electronics (C&IE) from November 1959 to June 1960. Motorola was developing the latest in a series of two way radio products of ever smaller size. These developments were part of an evolutionary process that led eventually to the cell phone. I was fresh out of school and my contributions were of no particular significance.
But let me tell you about something I observed on a daily basis at Motorola's plant in Chicago. Motorola C&IE had two black employees. They tended an incinerator on the opposite side of the parking lot from the plant. They were not allowed into the building. Not to take a break or eat lunch. Not to use the rest rooms. Not to warm up in the middle of Chicago's sub zero winters. And my fellow employees would take their breaks at the second floor windows overlooking that parking lot, and they would make insulting, racist comments about the two black employees.
I went to human relations, and in the most non-confrontational way that I could muster I asked why Motorola did not employ on the basis of ability, without regard to race. And at my six month review, I was terminated.
You don't have to take my word concerning Motorola's employment policies. In September of 1980, Motorola agreed to pay up to $10 million in back pay to some 11,000 blacks who were denied jobs over a seven-year period and to institute a $5 million affirmative action program, according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
I have a question for Martin Cooper. Marty, what did you ever do to challenge the blatant, toxic racial discrimination at Motorola?
Robert Gilchrist Huenemann, M.S.E.E.
120 Harbern Way
Hollister, CA 95023-9708
831-635-0786
bobgh@razzolink.com
https://sites.google.com/site/bobhuenemann/
Extra Class Amateur Radio License W6RFW